In the first study to experimentally investigate the phenomenon, researchers say it’s the unfulfilled ambitions of moms and dads that fuel their pushy parenting.

Tigers moms and sports dads, according to the investigation published in the journal PLOS One, are trying to mitigate their own failures by living through their children. That’s not entirely surprising, but, as study co-author Brad Bushman, professor of communication and psychology at Ohio State University says, “Our research provides the first empirical evidence that parents sometimes want their child to fulfill their unfulfilled ambitions—for example, that they want their child to become a physician when they themselves were rejected for medical school.”